I've been speaking about and working on the Aspire Project for quite some time now, and every so often I hear from folks who are eager to know how it's all going. Updates have been scarce so far, but things have now progressed to a point where I can share a few bits of early work and expand on the current state of the project.
The Aspire Project
Aspire was something I first came up with in my second year of studying Visual Communication at the University of Tasmania. My class received a project brief to explore a social issue and design a communication campaign to help raise awareness of it. There were a handful of people in previous years who’d tackled autism awareness and developed quite nice campaigns aimed at school-aged children, just to give them a bit of insight into that world and encourage kindness and acceptance toward same-age peers they might not otherwise understand.
That was something that jumped out at me, because I grew up with a diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome. I felt like I could do a similar sort of thing, but from an insider’s perspective. Not only that, but I also wanted to speak to others with Aspergers and address some of the self-image and worldview issues that can come along with having a label like that.
There’s a lot of great educational material about, and support programs – especially in schools – can do a lot to help people with Aspergers and autism learn coping strategies and participate in the wider community. But when you’re trying to connect at an emotional level, I think you need stories and art. You need characters you can identify with, who struggle with the same things you do. When you see someone like yourself growing as a person, confronting obstacles and meeting with success, it can help shape the narrative you have for your own life.
Tangled Pines
The Writer
The quality of the story that Aspire told was very important to me, but without much creative writing experience, I felt that I couldn't do it justice on my own. So, shortly after my presentation at TEDxLaunceston, I began collaborating on a new story with Lyndon Riggall, a super-talented Tasmanian writer. We spoke a lot about my experiences and thoughts about Aspergers, and came up with a few basic story ideas. Together, we've come up with a new story we're calling Tangled Pines - and I couldn't be more excited about the direction it's taking.
The story
The legend of the winter hound
In a little town, somewhere in the mountains, a local legend tells of a band of refugees, lost in the wilderness after fleeing a violent attack. They walked for days, hungry and exhausted. Just when they were about to give up, the story goes that their leader spotted a white dog in the distance, who led them to a safe place where the trees knotted and grew together to form a natural shelter. When the winter eased, they built their new homes around the Tangled Pines, but the white hound who saved them from the deadly cold was never seen again.
Never quite sure whether he was real or not, the villagers spoke of him as a guardian angel, and nicknamed him "Frost Tooth." He became the town mascot, always depicted with heavenly wings. Some believe he was nothing more than a near-death illusion or a lucky find, but others believe something more. That he is out there still, and the town of Tangled Pines remains his home. And that he will guard and protect it for as long as people need him. A watchful eye through day and night. There for those who call on him.
The cast
Left to right: Ziggy Williams, Jenny Maki, Pete Benson, and the town founder, Sarah Baron-Cohen.
Our hero Ziggy Williams is kind of an anxious kid, but he finds comfort in the art of dream interpretation. His actual name is Siegfried, but don't call him that – he will not be impressed. He and his mum have just moved to Tangled Pines, which means starting at a new school. Ziggy worries about the prospect of trying to make new friends all over again, but maybe like his mum says, this is a chance to make a fresh start.
Jenny Maki is also new to Tangled Pines, but it's an even bigger change for her – she and her family were living in Japan before now. Jenny identifies with Ziggy because she often feels like a stranger too, and they try to help each other navigate life in the town.
Pete Benson is two years above Ziggy and Jenny, and is to be feared and avoided. He is the school bully, a nasty and aggressive individual who picks on people who are different, and loves to prowl outside the "Special Needs" room. Next year he will graduate to Baron-Cohen High, so Ziggy and Jenny just have to survive one more year without getting in his way too much.
Sarah Baron-Cohen was the leader of the refugees who founded the town. An extraordinary woman with a fierce resolve and a warm heart, she took her village's women and children away from the fires of war. When their hiding place was discovered, she led them through the wilderness in search of a safe pass through the mountains – but had it not been for the appearance of Frost Tooth, they might never have made it.
Early character designs and concept art
Each of the characters have been through a lot of iterative changes as the project has taken shape. Here's a sample of what things looked like in the early stages:
What's next?
So far, Lyndon has finished two draft chapters of the comic script, and I've almost finished work on preliminary storyboards for the first chapter. It's difficult to predict yet when we'll have something ready to show – both of us are new to making comics and we each have to balance it with other commitments.
Right now, my focus is on finishing the storyboards. While this is rough work, a lot of design and storytelling decisions are taking shape at this stage. When I'm finished, we'll have a basic draft ready to evaluate so we can figure out what to polish in the finished artwork.
We haven't yet decided how we'll approach production and distribution, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, I'll be sharing more work in progress like this as it all comes together.
I'm really looking forward to bringing this to the light of day. Between myself and Lyndon, I think we stand a good chance of producing an extraordinary work of art. It's everything the Aspire Project was always aiming for and much, much more.
